There’s never a bad time for a good pastry. Sitting down to breakfast? Fuel up with a fresh scone or coffee cake. Grabbing lunch while sight-seeing? You can’t go wrong with a soft-baked cookie. Finishing up a hike around Salem or in the Cascade foothills? Treat yourself to a cupcake for your efforts.

Whatever the occasion—and even if the occasion is “just because”—Salem and the Mid-Willamette Valley is home to several shops churning out a wide range of decadent treats. You’ll find creative cookies, old-school cannoli, impossibly sweet chocolate truffles, traditional Mexican desserts, and more—some of it even gluten-free and vegan-friendly.

So while you savor the possibilities, here are eight outstanding spots to indulge your sweet tooth in the Salem region.

Over the years, Crumbl Cookies has earned acclaim for its savory cookies and unique menu choice: The hip bakery offers a rotating menu, with four flavors that change weekly (chosen from a possible 120 flavors in total), along with recipes that are constantly updated and improved. Add it all up, and you’re always in for a fun surprise when you visit Crumbl Cookies in Salem.

The one constant? The shop’s ever-popular milk chocolate chip cookie.

But get beyond the classics and find plenty of creative concoctions—including a cinnamon fry bread cookie (topped with melted butter and cinnamon honey buttercream), a chocolate cake cookie (packed with chocolate chips and topped with fudge frosting and shaved chocolate curls), and a raspberry lemon cookie (crafted with a lemon cookie base and topped with a marbled lemon and raspberry frosting). The Crumbl Cookies menu even works some of your favorite candy bars into the mix; its oatmeal cookie is made with Rolo caramel pieces, one sugar cookie is topped with Twix pieces, and its peanut butter cookie is adorned with Butterfinger candy bar crumbles.

And if you can’t make it into the store, you’re in luck: Crumbl Cookies offers delivery and shipping, both locally and nationally.

Everything about The Little Cannoli Bakery in downtown Salem exudes an old-school charm—from the bistro-like interior, designed to recall an Italian café, to the exhaustive menu of classic desserts.

Diners can choose among a wide range of pastries, cookies, cakes, and pies—with selections ranging from cream-filled croissants and eclairs to several varieties of cookies and perfectly prepared coffee cakes. Of course, fresh cannoli is available—and is filled and dipped to order for maximum freshness. Pair your snack with the bakery’s lineup of espresso and Italian sodas.

When you need a quick sugar fix, make haste for Bigwig Donuts in the heart of downtown Salem. The small bakery specializes in donut holes—and only donut holes—that are fully gluten-free and vegan-friendly. Ingredients are also locally sourced and organic whenever possible.

Flavors rotate regularly, but might include a classic chocolate glaze, cinnamon sugar, maple, or lemon poppyseed. In winter, holiday-themed donut holes are crafted with crushed bits of candy cane. Donut holes are only available by the dozen—but, thankfully, you can mix and match if you’re feeling indecisive.

When you’ve ordered your dozen (or two!), pair your sweet treat with Bigwig’s selection of tea lattes, espresso, coffee, and more.

Launched in 2016, Sweetsmith Bakery (a spinoff from Salem culinary favorite Amadeus) specializes in exquisitely crafted cakes. The 24 Karrot cake is a masterpiece of gluten-free goodness: three thick layers of zucchini and carrot cake decadently dressed with cream cheese frosting, English toffee and chunks of penuche fudge. The chocolate flourless cake, also gluten-free, offers a dense mousse-like texture, accented with freshly whipped cream and pureed berries. Pirate’s booty is Sweetsmith’s Oregon-centric interpretation of German chocolate cake, made with Santiam Brewing’s Pirate Stout. Plenty of savory items round out the menu—try the North-African-inspired shakshuka, topped with a duck egg.

Jubilee Champagne and Dessert Bar inhabits the space of a former corner drugstore and soda fountain whose neon sign still graces the painted brick exterior in the heart of Independence. Clean white lines, raw brick, and pastel hues conspire to make the interior as sweet and charming as the confections.

Owner Dana Heuberger says the sugar cookie dippers—a cellophane bag of sugar cookie bars and a tub of buttercream frosting in pink, blue or yellow—are popular with all ages. French macarons come in a rainbow of flavors: pale orange-pink mimosa, bright yellow lemon, cool blue birthday cake, and Jubilee’s own signature crème brûlée macaron (which is ivory-white and caramelized by torch). Choose from cupcakes, tarts, and bars for the kids, and beer, wine, and bubbly for mom and dad.

The family-run Melting Pot Candy, housed in downtown Independence, crafts elegant, handmade chocolates in a small-town 1895 storefront with soaring ceilings and a brick interior. Truffles shine like jewels. The domed crown of the marionberry truffle is a gleaming metallic purple that would look at home on a ‘67 Chevy lowrider; the Irish cream truffle sports a pastel splatter like a confectionary quail’s egg; the beer-infused Rogue hazelnut nectar seems brushed with spun gold. Crunchy, award-winning toffee is a specialty of the house, with combinations including cinnamon pecan milk chocolate, jalapeño dark chocolate almond, and white chocolate cashew.

Too often, those with dietary restrictions are left hungry while the rest of us wolf down our cookies, cakes, pies, and more with reckless abandon. Not so at Sin-able Sweets, which bakes pastries and desserts geared toward those with various dietary needs in downtown Mt. Angel.

Sin-Able Sweets bills itself as a “dietetic” bakery, thanks to the many ways it tries to accommodate anyone with a sweet tooth. That means high-quality baked goods for those living with diabetes or on low-sugar diets, goodies for those on keto and low-carb diets, gluten-free desserts, and more. Even if you don’t have dietary restrictions, you’ll find plenty to love about the specially baked treats; the Sin-Able menu includes cannoli, eclairs, cookies, cinnamon rolls, cake slices, parfaits (with specialty flavors that rotate monthly), brownies, and other decadent desserts.

Paleteria y Neveria El Paisanito is an authentic Michoacán-style factory of popsicles and ice cream in all the classic flavors you’d find in the heart of Mexico. Oregon strawberries are deliciously incarnated in several traditional paletas: pure strawberry; chunks of fruit suspended in cream; and a peony-pink, dairy-laced blended strawberry confection. Other items represent a far more exotic fruit basket: paletas and ice creams made of tamarind, soursop, mamey, guava, nance and more tempt curious visitors. Other unexpected flavors include walnut, chongos (cheese curds), cajeta (caramelized goat milk), pine nut and rose petals. Visiting this thriving main-street business in the heart of Woodburn’s Mexican-American community is like a sweet, whirlwind journey south of the border; just keep in mind that the shop is only open March-Sept.

For more ideas about what to see and do in the Salem region, see these additional blog posts.